The Motive Behind the Mission: Why Diversity is Vital to All Modern Workplaces

The fight for diversity in workplaces has been an endless battle of continued persistence and small victories that has stretched on for countless years. These movements have rapidly gained traction and support globally through our ever evolving information based society, pressuring many companies to reflect on how they treat diversity in their own offices. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives have been popping up in many workplaces within the past few decades in response to the public’s call to action. While this is definitely a large win for the tireless advocates, the fight is far from over. DEI initiatives are often not taken seriously and treated as a sort of quota for businesses to meet, a superficial status meant to appease the masses. Understanding the vital role that diversity serves to companies, consumers, and employees alike is the first step in recognizing the profound possibilities that equality offers to the modern economy.  

A diverse team is absolutely necessary for the success of any business. Individuals that come from different backgrounds or have different gender, racial, or sexual identities have diverse experiences, and thus offer their own unique perspectives, talents, and skill sets to the workplace. In fact, a 2017 study from the BCG found that, “ Companies that reported above-average diversity on their management teams also reported innovation revenue that was 19 percentage points higher than that of companies with below-average leadership diversity”. Diversity has been statistically proven to increase company profits. The combination of a wide variety of skills and experiences opens businesses up to more game changing ideas that can bring companies to the next level, ideas that may not have come up in a less diverse workplace. Another study in 2022 by Gartner concluded that, “75% of organizations with frontline decision-making teams reflecting a diverse and inclusive culture will exceed their financial targets. And gender-diverse and inclusive teams outperformed gender-homogeneous, less inclusive teams by 50%, on average”. If financial gain is the objective measure of a workplace’s success, then both cultural and gender diversity are objectively necessary variables in any successful company. 

It’s clear that diverse teams can increase profits, with one of the reasons behind this due to the ability of such teams to reach a broader marketplace. As a consumer, you’re drawn to products and services that feel like they include and represent you. When companies have diverse voices in the production process, the resulting creation can more often be something that reaches a more diverse audience. Take Dove’s Real Beauty campaign for example. The campaign was launched in 2017 to empower beauty in all women of different races, gender identities, and sizes, challenging the long-standing standards of beauty. The current CEO of dove, Suzy Sammons, is continuing Dove’s mission in breaking the traditional concepts of beauty and spreading body positivity to young people and women across the globe. According to the magazine Strixus, “the company increased revenues by 10% in a single year” after the launch of the Real Beauty campaign.  Dove’s diversity powered campaign proved to be a win-win for both the consumer and the company.  

Aside from just product and service marketing, diversity is extremely important in more intimate client-company relationships. When interacting with any kind of service worker, it’s important that clients feel comfortable and seen. In the medical field for example, patients may have a preference to be treated by a doctor of the same gender or ethnicity as them. A 2018 survey by YouGov found that 31% of Americans preferred being treated by a female doctor and of the survey-takers, “Women were considerably more likely to say they preferred treatment by a female doctor”. This information is critical, considering that the STEM field had been predominantly male-dominated since its founding. Of course, the field still is male-dominated, but the amount of women who are now entering the field has increased as of late. AAMC has found that while in 2007, 28.3% of physicians in the workforce were female, that number has been on a steady increase since, with 36.3% being female as of 2019. While many people may not have a preference of gender in their doctors, the few people who do should have the option to feel to see the physician they’d like. Like many other services, healthcare is universal, serving an infinitely diverse group of clients.  Thus, it should be that diverse clients can see themselves reflected in a diverse workforce.  Regardless of serious preference, many people may just find more connection with the industry if they are being treated by someone who shares similar experiences as them. This level of trust between patient and doctor is vital in the healthcare field, as the matter of health can be a vulnerable and transparent one. However, trust between client and server, consumer and business, is necessary to all work fields. Though diversity is not always a requirement for such trust to be built, diverse workplaces are more capable of offering that connection where needed. They can help many individuals feel seen and represented in a world that has often been lacking in such genuine inclusion. 

It’s clear that diversity benefits a company’s success and a client’s experience, but it’s also important to note how diversity influences the workplace itself. Having a diverse set of individuals in a team can increase productivity and benefit collaboration for a variety of reasons, with one of these reasons having to do with the variable of psychological safety. In the context of work, psychological safety can be defined as the ability for one to share their ideas, ask questions, and collaborate without the fear of backlash from those around them.  The worker feels enough safety in the environment to freely express their ideas and contribute to the team. Diversity plays a major role in how psychologically safe employees feel in their work environments, as psychological safety is directly correlated to freedom of expression. An article from Michigan State University addresses this perfectly, explaining that “Employees feeling able to be their whole selves at work means they can exhibit their race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, background, family status, and all other parts of their identity without judgment”. The first step to creating an inclusive work environment where employees feel safe to embrace their identities is actually including a diverse set of individuals. The psychological safety that diversity can bring into teams has huge impacts on the team’s ability to communicate efficiently and productively. In a 2018 study, MSU found that psychological safety in workplaces caused employees to “become more open-minded, resilient, motivated, and persistent when they feel safe, thus improving their performance”.  Though diversity is not a new or incredibly complex idea, the small positive effects it can have on everyday work life really build up, completely altering a company’s inner structure and flow of productivity in the best way possible.  

To brush aside the need for diversity in a workplace would be to set up your business for failure, as diversity has proven time and time again to be a necessary component for any great enterprise. It’s clear that diversity has always been vital to the lifeline and success of industries, and its significance will only continue to grow as workplaces are going through rapid globalization. Putting aside the objective role diversity serves to companies, arguably the most important effect that promoting diversity, equality, and inclusion in the workplace have are on minority communities themselves. After all, empowering and uplifting minority communities has been the heart of this whole fight all along. Non-inclusive companies have made it extensively difficult for minority groups to feel welcome in the workplace. A 2022 BusinessWire report found that, “ many candidates experience biases during the hiring process, with 50% of employees believing their race, gender, or ethnicity has hindered them in securing a job”. The lack of genuine effort to promote diversity within businesses creates a major issue for both potential candidates and current employees. Minority groups may often feel like their job or place in a company is something that has to be fought for and won time and time again due to a company’s internal or structural biases. This can be extremely discouraging and close a lot of doors, especially for young people. Even if a company isn’t outwardly biased, the lack of effort to include the voices of a diverse group is an inherently biased act within itself. The implementation of DEI initiatives have had varying effects on actual inclusivity in workplaces, and it’s important to celebrate the baby steps as well as continuing to push for more.  

Minority voices have been changing the world for millennia, but these voices shouldn’t have to fight to be heard. Creating a more diverse workplace is a simple thing that can finally give communities that have been overlooked and silenced a place to share their skills, perspectives, and experiences with the world. This unique exchange of ideas is only made possible with a unique and well-rounded group of people. Though total workplace equity has been a work in progress for many years and likely will be for many more, diversity has always been the future of societal, economic, and political progression and evolution. It is vital to hold companies accountable for their DEI efforts. It's important to nitpick the small things, and to keep pressuring every workplace to reflect on how they approach diversity and to make improvements where necessary. At the end of the day, the diverse workplace is open to endless possibilities of innovation and creation; it’s a future that’s absolutely worth the fight.  

Sources:

• Gartner

• BCG

• Linkedin

• Dove’s Real Beauty Project - Impact

• Patient-Doctor relationship same race/ethnicity

• Women prefer female doctors

• Psychological Safety 

• Effects of no DEI

• Increases in diversity in STEM Fields